Chương 21: The System Said Yes (1/2)

Down in the muddy street, thirty feet below the slanted roof, Gao Han adjusted the collar of his dark gray oiled-cloth raincoat.

The fabric stuck to his neck—damp, clammy, the weave clinging like cold fingers—and he tugged it free with two sharp fingers, nails scraping against the coarse material. His wide bamboo hat shed water in thin streams that pattered against his shoulders, each droplet drumming a steady rhythm that merged with the hiss of rain striking stone and mud.

He side-stepped a puddle of brown slush, his boot heel skidding slightly on the slick cobblestones before he caught his balance. The street squelched beneath him, ankle-deep muck sucking at his soles with every step.

Everywhere—mud, rot, the sour reek of human waste pooling in cracked gutters. The stench crawled up his nostrils, thick and cloying, coating the back of his throat. His throat tightened involuntarily. He swallowed hard, jaw clenching until the muscles along his temples ached, and exhaled slow through his nose to keep from gagging.

Filthy mortals.

He hated the Outer Wards. The stench of poverty, raw sewage, and unwashed peddlers clung to his clothes like grease, seeping through the oiled cloth to settle against his skin. Even the rain—cold and relentless—couldn't wash away the miasma of desperation that hung over this place like fog over a burial ground.

But as a specialized courier for the Flesh-Forge Pavilion, he couldn't afford to draw attention.

Tucked securely into the inner pocket of his robes was a freshly transcribed ledger—bound in something that felt too soft, too warm against his ribs, the texture disturbingly smooth like cured leather that had never belonged to any beast—detailing the bribed City Guards who allowed the Apothecaries to harvest organs from living prisoners. The weight of it pressed against his chest with every breath, a constant reminder of the death warrant it represented.

If the orthodox hypocrites of the Celestial Remnants caught me with this, they would flay my soul. Or worse— He pressed his palm flat against his sternum, fingers splaying wide. Beneath the fabric, the jade slip radiated faint heat, smooth as polished bone, its warmth spreading outward in gentle pulses that matched his heartbeat.

The expensive Phantom-Veil artifact masked his Tier-1 Peak aura, flattening his presence into something forgettable—Qi-less, unremarkable.

A ghost.

Gao Han turned sharply, ducking into a narrow, shadowed alleyway to bypass the crowded main thoroughfare. His shoulders brushed both walls as he squeezed through, the oiled raincoat scraping against wet brick.

The brick walls pressed close, slick with moss that squelched under his palms when he steadied himself. The crimson lantern light from the street died behind him, swallowed by the pressing darkness. Rain hammered the clay tiles overhead, muffled and distant now, creating a hollow drumming that echoed off stone.

"Just three more blocks," he muttered, voice low and rasping beneath the drumming rain, breath misting white in the frigid air.

"Deliver the ledger. Collect the pill. Get out of this decaying rat-hole."

His fingers flexed unconsciously, seeking the reassuring weight of the dagger at his waist.

…

High above, a true ghost stared down at him.

Shi Yan heard everything. The mention of the ledger. The jade slip. The artifact masking the courier's presence.

His muscles tensed. The dense tendons of his legs—coiled tight as wound cable, fibers hardening into steel-spring readiness—locked into position. His breathing didn't change. His heartbeat stayed locked at its baseline rhythm, unaffected by adrenaline or anticipation, a metronome of controlled lethality.

Cultivators in this world relied entirely on their spiritual senses to detect ambushes. They felt the flare of Qi, the shift of murderous intent, the rising warm signature of a Dantian pulsing with condensed spiritual energy.

Shi Yan had none of those.

He was a void.

The freezing rain continued to pour in sheets, drumming against his hat, his shoulders, the clay tiles beneath his boots. It washed the city noise into a low, indistinct roar—voices, cart wheels, distant forge hiss all blending into perfect acoustic cover.

Shi Yan slipped off the roof.

He didn't just fall. His body angled forward, weight shifting through his core as he dropped, arms tucked tight against his sides to minimize air resistance.

Gravity pulled him down in a controlled glide, silent as a shadow peeling free from stone. The wind screamed past his ears—a rushing void of sound—but his descent made no noise, no displacement of air that would warn a cultivator's heightened senses.

Thirty feet blurred past in less than two seconds. His boots met wet cobblestone with barely a whisper, knees bending deep to absorb the impact through hips and spine, rain splashing outward in a thin, soundless ring that spread and vanished into the surrounding downpour.

He stood directly behind Gao Han.

For half a second, nothing.

Then the courier's body stiffened. His shoulders jerked upward, spine going rigid. The air pressure—disrupted, wrong, the sudden presence of mass where there had been nothing—triggered something primal in his spine, some ancient animal instinct that screamed predator.

"Who—?!" Gao Han hissed, pivoting hard on his heel, mud spraying from his boot.

His reaction speed was terrifying. In a fraction of a second, his right hand blurred toward his waist, fingers already curling around the hilt of his dagger.

Dirty yellow Qi erupted around his fingers, molten and sharp, the spiritual energy condensing into a glowing blade that hissed and spat sparks against the rain. He was already bringing it upward in a rising slash meant to bisect torso from hip, the arc perfectly calculated, the angle surgical.

But [39 Agility] was faster.

Shi Yan didn't retreat. His left hand shot forward—hardened knuckles chopping down like a hammer, the strike precise and mechanical—and struck the radial nerve of Gao Han's rising forearm with devastating accuracy.

Crack.

The nerve strike was devastating. Gao Han's fingers spasmed open instantly, tendons jerking uselessly as the yellow Qi blade sputtered—sparks hissing against the rain like hot iron plunged into water—before dissolving into nothing, the spiritual construct unraveling without the sustained will to maintain it. His arm went limp, dead weight swinging at his side, muscles unresponsive.

Before the courier could even gasp, Shi Yan's right hand clamped like an iron vise over the man's mouth, fingers digging into jaw and cheek. He drove Gao Han's skull backward into the slick brick wall with all the force of [39 Physique] behind it.

Thud.

The impact punched the air from Gao Han's lungs. His chest convulsed, ribs flexing inward as his diaphragm spasmed, but no sound escaped. The hand sealed his mouth completely, palm crushing his lips against his teeth. His wide bamboo hat tumbled off, spinning once before landing in the mud with a wet slap.

The courier's eyes bulged. Whites showing all around the iris, veins standing out red against the sclera. Pure, unfiltered terror flooded his features—brows shooting upward, nostrils flaring wide as he tried desperately to suck air through his nose.

He stared into Shi Yan's face.

Dead eyes. Unblinking. No rage. No satisfaction. No triumph. Nothing. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there.

Just the empty gaze of a man performing a mechanical task.

Then Shi Yan twisted—hips rotating, shoulders following through in one smooth, economical motion, the biomechanics textbook-perfect—and snapped the man's cervical vertebrae with a sharp lateral torque.

Crunch.

The sound was wet and organic, cartilage compressing, bone grinding against bone, the spinal cord severing instantly. Gao Han's body went slack, all tension draining from his limbs in a single terrible instant. His weight sagged forward, head lolling at an unnatural angle, held upright only by Shi Yan's grip. The rain drummed against his back, rivulets streaming down his raincoat and pooling at his knees, mixing with the mud.

Kill time: 1. 2 seconds.

Shi Yan lowered the corpse slowly into the mud, controlling the descent with both hands to prevent splashing, muscles flexing as he eased the dead weight downward. Water oozed up around the body, dark and thick, spreading outward in slow ripples.

A transparent screen flashed across his vision, the text sharp and clinical against the gray rain.

[Target Slain. Tier-1 Peak. +250 Dao Embers.] His eyes narrowed briefly, the only visible reaction. Two hundred fifty. Not much. But [Dao Embers] were [Dao Embers].

He grabbed the corpse by the collar—fabric bunching in his fist, still warm from body heat—and dragged it toward the back of the alley. The body left a wide smear through the mud, raincoat scraping over broken cobblestones.

At the alley's end, floodwater rushed into a massive iron-barred sluice grate built into the street's foundation. The water roared as it funneled downward, a churning brown torrent swallowing debris and filth, the sound echoing up from the black depths like the throat of some great beast.

Shi Yan crouched beside the grate, knees sinking into the mud.

He stripped the body with methodical efficiency: first, a finely balanced steel dagger pulled from its sheath at the waist, the blade gleaming dully even in the weak light; then a heavy pouch of silver taels that clinked softly as he transferred it beneath his cloak; the human-skin ledger—still disturbingly warm and supple—removed carefully from the inner pocket; and finally the jade slip.

It hung from a thin braided cord around Gao Han's neck, faintly pulsing with residual heat even through the rain, the surface slick and smooth against his calloused fingers.

He stuffed each item into hidden compartments beneath his straw cloak, distributing the weight evenly across his torso.

Then he braced his boots against the slick cobblestones, planted his stance wide for leverage, gripped the rusted iron grate with both hands, and wrenched it open.

Metal shrieked in protest. Rust flaked off in orange chunks, falling like dried blood into the rushing water below. The grate swung wide, hinges groaning, revealing a black, roaring void below—a vertical shaft that dropped into darkness, the floodwater cascading down in a deafening waterfall.

He shoved the limp corpse headfirst into the roaring drainage canal below, using his boot to push the shoulders through when they caught on the edge.

The body vanished instantly. The rushing floodwater grabbed it with vicious force, spinning it once—limbs flailing like a discarded puppet—before dragging it deep into the city's subterranean aqueducts, down into the lightless tunnels that spread beneath Skycloud City like veins beneath diseased skin.

Shi Yan's eyes tracked the void for two seconds, unblinking, watching the darkness swallow the evidence.

Drawing on the original host's fragmented memories—city rumors, whispered warnings exchanged in market stalls—and his own violent encounter with the mutated abyss-rats below, he knew exactly what kind of ecosystem thrived down there. The scavengers were aggressive, starving, and efficient.

Well, whatever aquatic scavengers bred in those deep tunnels would destroy the face by morning anyway. The floodwater would wash away the remaining blood after that, scrubbing the stone clean.

Which meant Gao Han was just another missing person. Another soul swallowed by the Outer Wards. No body. No evidence. No investigation.

Shi Yan gripped the heavy iron grate and slid it back into place. Metal scraped against stone, the sound harsh and grating. The roar muffled slightly as the bars locked into position, rust settling back into the worn grooves.

He wiped his hands on his cloak—palms streaked with rust and grime—and left the alley without looking back.

…

Two blocks toward the perimeter of the slums, he found a dilapidated boarding house. The structure sagged visibly to one side, wood beams warped and blackened by age and moisture, the second floor leaning precariously over the street.

The smell hit him before he reached the door—cheap liquor mixed with wet rot, old sweat soaked into floorboards for years, the sour tang of bodies packed too close together. The scent was thick enough to taste, coating his tongue like oil.

Inside, a half-asleep clerk leaned against the counter, chin propped on one scarred fist, knuckles white against the splintered wood. His eyes barely opened as Shi Yan approached, lids fluttering just enough to register movement, a thin line of yellowed white visible beneath.

Shi Yan didn't speak. He pulled a single silver tael from his newly looted stash and slapped it onto the wood, the metal ringing once before settling.

"A room. Top floor. Corner," Shi Yan rasped, face angled downward beneath his bamboo hat, features hidden in shadow.

"And absolutely no interruptions."

The clerk's hand moved—smooth, practiced, the motion of someone who'd made this exchange a thousand times—sweeping the silver into his sleeve without a glance, fingers curling around the coin with greedy efficiency. He tossed a rusted iron key onto the counter, the metal clattering once before sliding to a stop.

No words. No questions. This was the kind of place where silence was currency.

…

Minutes later, Shi Yan bolted the flimsy door of a cramped, windowless room.

The bolt rattled as it slid home, wood groaning faintly under the pressure, the frame warped enough that it took two tries to secure it properly.

The space was miserable: a moth-eaten futon that smelled faintly of mildew and old sweat, stuffing leaking from torn seams; a cracked wooden table missing one corner, the surface stained dark with spilled liquor and gods-knew-what-else; and a tarnished bronze washbasin filled with stagnant water, a film of scum floating on the surface.

But the roof was solid. Rain drummed steadily overhead, muffled and distant, the sound rhythmic and almost soothing after hours in the downpour.

He set his wet straw cloak aside. Water dripped from the edges, pooling on the warped floorboards, spreading in dark stains across the uneven wood.

Shi Yan sat on the edge of the futon—springs creaking beneath his weight—and held the jade slip in the palm of his hand.

It was warm. Smooth as polished glass, the surface flawless against his calloused skin. Faintly pulsing—barely perceptible, a heartbeat-like rhythm—like something alive beneath the surface, spiritual energy circulating through microscopic channels carved into the stone.

The transparent screen materialized before his eyes, text clean and precise.

[Item Recognized: Daoist Phantom-Veil (Jade Slip).] [Status: Requires active Qi circulation to maintain optical and spiritual refraction.]